Love to Read | Techniques on instill a love of reading

1. Encourage speech. Talk to little babies, even before they can respond. When young children want something, let them ask instead of rushing to do their bidding immediately.
   

2. Starts with storytelling. Looking at a book together can be a pleasurable experience even when a child is very young. Choose a time when your little one is in the right mood. Make it pleasurable. Hold the child close and make the session short. When he has had enough and loses interest, stop at once.

3. Provide a good example by reading yourself and always have books in the house.

4. Buy books that small children can handle, such as cloth books and board books.

5. Expect your child to learn to read by looking at the pictures first. Even this simple activity is quite complicated as the child has to associate a flat picture with a real object, the written word with language and to learn that a book starts from the beginning and goes from left to right.

6. Good early signs are when he looks at a book spontaneously for a minute or two and when he turns the pages.

7. If the child has been reading with parents, the child may start to tell the story. Don’t worry if it is not what is written down. The child is beginning to associate language with writing.

8. Memorising is another early pre-reading stage and is another way to reading.

9. With young children, always let them set the pace. If a parent pushes and a child senses pressure and anxiety, it will cease to be a pleasurable experience and reject the idea.

10. Resist the temptation to compare with siblings and friends and be judgmental.

11. Read regularly with your child, preferably for a short time each day.

12. Build up confidence and manipulate the situation so that the child succeeds.

13. Early reading contains a lot of repetition to give the reader practice. Don’t be surprised if your child can recognise a word on one page and not on the next.

14. If a child cannot read a word at all, get him to read the end of the sentence and then give a guess. Your child can also look at the beginning letter for a clue and look at the picture. If he can’t get it, tell him the word and carry on. Stop now and again and ask what he or she thinks may happen next in the story. Prediction will show that he understands the story line and increases the enjoyment and suspense.

15. As with any learning experience, consolidation at each stage is essential. Children need to read widely at each level.

16. There is no hurry. Encourage a lifetime love of reading and they need to assimilate a wide vocabulary and common sentence patterns at each stage. Progressing too quickly leads to poor comprehension. As the books become more difficult, the story becomes more complicated and the child needs to understand and enjoy the storyline.